


Wine and Heartache

by RosalindInPants



Series: Intimate Lessons [4]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: AU - sin, Anal Sex, Comfort Sex, Drunk Sex, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wolfe and Santi have an open relationship, arguably adoptive family incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27418717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: With Santi away on a mission for the first time since the battle in Alexandria, the last thing Wolfe wants is to be alone. So when Jess turns up with dinner and wine, Wolfe is glad for the company. But Jess isn't doing so well himself, and as the empty wine bottles pile up, they find themselves drawn together by a need for more physical comfort.(This is unquestionably a bad decision on both their parts, but Jess is 18 and Wolfe is not his teacher or otherwise in any position of authority over him.)
Relationships: Jess Brightwell/Christopher Wolfe
Series: Intimate Lessons [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655851
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Wine and Heartache

Wolfe was not in the best of moods when a knock on the door startled him from his reading. It wasn't an evening for good moods. It was his first night alone since the war, the revolution, the Library's renewal, whatever the historians might eventually settle on calling it, and he was handling his solitude every bit as well as he'd expected he would. With a stack of books, a bottle of wine, and a constant vigilance for the kinds of irrational thoughts that would drag him into shaking, screaming madness.

Plenty of those at the sound of a fist on wood. Such a thoroughly stupid thing to panic at. He was safe. Better than safe. His former student sat on the Archivist's throne, his lover commanded the High Garda, and even the city's criminals answered to people he was on good terms with. Anyone who wished him harm would have a hard time of it, particularly with an attack as blatant as knocking on the damned door. Indeed, he suspected no one deemed threatening would even make it as far as his door. Nic might have agreed not to give Wolfe any special treatment, but that didn't mean any soldier would want to be in the unenviable position of being the one who let a threat slip through to the Lord Commander's lover.

Even the new Curia preferred pretending nothing had ever happened over assassination attempts - which was, he supposed, an improvement - and even if any of them did harbor murderous intent, they were all in France. With Khalila and Nic. Finalizing a treaty of monumental importance, a mission from which Wolfe would not dream of distracting his lover. He'd seen Nic off with a kiss, a smile, and an insistence that he would be fine.

And he _would_ be, whatever his racing pulse and intrusive memories might try to say about the matter. Thus resolved, Wolfe stood and marched himself to the door, which he yanked open to scowl at whomever had the nerve to disturb him.

Jess Brightwell stood on the doorstep, hands full with a bag that smelled like falafel and a bottle of white wine that seemed to glow in the dying light of sunset. The young man looked up at Wolfe with a sheepish expression that failed to hide the shadows in his eyes. "I thought you might like some company tonight," he said with a broken smile that suggested he was himself in need of just that.

Wolfe felt his expression softening, and he hoped the relief coursing through his veins didn't show. Of course it was only Jess, reaching out in his awkward way for the support Wolfe had offered. The two of them were far too much alike. With a nod that was as much understanding as acceptance, Wolfe ushered Jess inside.

Neither of them drank slowly. The wine Jess brought lasted no longer than the food, and they finished another two bottles over a long-running game of go. Jess played well, but Wolfe scraped out a victory and sent Jess to choose their next game while he fetched another bottle of wine.

Emerging from the kitchen with an open bottle of Shiraz, Wolfe found Jess staring blankly at the shelf of games. The look on the young man's face was one Wolfe knew all too well. It was the look worn by the families of soldiers who didn't come home from war, and it made Wolfe's chest go tight to see, though it hardly came as a surprise. Jess shared Wolfe's talent for keeping his pain secret, but no matter how well he seemed to be coping, Jess had lost too much, too quickly for his heart's wounds to even begin to mend.

Leaving the wine on the table, Wolfe joined Jess at the shelf and laid a hand lightly on the young man's shoulder. He thought at first that the fine tremors he felt might be his own, but no, for once, his hand held steady. It was Jess shaking, his slender body tight as the coiled spring of a trap.

"You don't have to pretend," Wolfe said softly. "Not with me."

"I'm not..." Jess began, then shook his head. "I wasn't..."

"Shh. I know. It can come on you suddenly, can't it? Come and sit."

It took only the gentlest of urging to get Jess to the couch, where he sat with his head in his hands while Wolfe filled their two glasses. He could guess at any number of triggers for Jess's current distress, but he knew from experience that it would not be at all helpful to mention any of them, so he held his tongue and took his time pouring. It was a good enough wine to deserve a careful pour, anyway, with its strong notes of dark fruit and its biting bitterness that so well suited Wolfe's mood. Catching the light, it shone, a deep red close enough to violet to make the mind think of jewels and not of blood. He wouldn't drink Merlot on a night like this.

He brought the glasses over to the couch and held one out to Jess, who took it without looking up. Only when Wolfe took a seat beside Jess did Jess lift his head. Jess didn't speak, but the speed at which he gulped down half the glass said enough.

Wolfe took a deep drink of his own before saying, "It won't help to hold it in, whatever it is."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Jess said, and let out a brittle laugh. "You've said it yourself, Scholar, we're too much alike."

It was a fair point, and Wolfe raised his glass in acknowledgement. He'd had too much to drink for denial. "So we are. The point stands. Talking does help, however hard overcoming one's intrinsic resistance to it may be, and I am offering to listen."

He was half sure Jess would refuse, but after another drink, Jess muttered, "You'll think this is stupid."

"Try me," Wolfe replied. "I may be hard on you at times, but I have not observed in you any propensity toward stupidity. Youthful foolishness, on occasion, and recklessness, certainly, but not stupidity."

Jess took another drink and sat back, letting his head flop back against the couch to gaze up at the ceiling. "Call this youthful foolishness, then." He was quiet for a long minute, and Wolfe waited for him, sipping the wine slowly and letting it numb his tongue. At last, Jess said, "I miss the things I didn't even have. With Brendan, with Morgan. I see Khalila and Dario planning their wedding, you living here with Santi... I don't even know what Morgan and I were to each other in the end. Things weren't right between us after the Colosseum, and then she... she..." His breath hitched, and he shook his head, sending overgrown strands of dirty blond hair tumbling into his eyes.

He didn't bother to brush them away, so Wolfe did, gently tucking back the thin, silky hair behind Jess's pale ear before he was quite sure what had come over him. Probably the mention of Nic. This deep in his cups, the mention of his lover's name was enough to kindle the ache of longing he'd been trying to forget. It made him sentimental.

Ever so slightly, Jess turned his face into the touch. Probably not consciously. Wolfe let his hand drift down to stroke the boy's cheek, soft with the downy hairs of a beard scarcely starting to grow. Another way they were alike, that. Wolfe hadn't been able to manage a decent beard himself until he had at least a decade on Jess. Still couldn't grow one half as full as Nic could.

"And you cannot help but wonder what might have been," Wolfe said, smoothing back the unkempt strands of Jess's hair. "You grieve the dreams that died with the ones you loved. That isn't stupid, Jess."

Brushing Wolfe's hand away, Jess sat up and gulped down the remainder of his wine. He turned to face Wolfe, and his lips quirked up into a crooked smile that reminded Wolfe very much of Brendan. "If you say so, I guess I can't argue. I can trust you not to varnish the truth."

Wolfe gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, or meant to, at least. No sooner was his hand on Jess's shoulder than the facade of calm shattered. Jess collapsed against him, shuddering with a tide of emotion too long repressed, and all Wolfe could do was awkwardly set his own glass on the side table and gather Jess into his arms. The poor boy must have needed that all along, though he would have denied it, even to himself. His arms wrapped around Wolfe and held tight. Like a drowning sailor to a floating piece of wreckage.

It was the kind of emotional outburst that Wolfe felt himself thoroughly unqualified to deal with. Nic would have known what to say. But Nic wasn't there, and Wolfe could offer only a pale imitation. "I know it hurts," he whispered, pulling the boy close, rubbing his back the way Nic would have done with a firm, slow hand. He couldn't help but notice how thin Jess was, all lean muscle stretched over his small frame. Still not fully recovered from the deprivation of Philadelphia or the lingering illness of the poison, Wolfe suspected, though he also noted the well-concealed power in those thin shoulders. Maybe more recovered than he seemed.

And certainly flexible. From his awkward and slumped position, Jess wriggled his way into Wolfe's lap. It looked like a terribly uncomfortable process, but Jess didn't seem to mind. If anything, he seemed more at ease with his body pressed against Wolfe's. Burrowing his head into Wolfe's shoulder, he let out a shaky sigh and said, "I always wanted what you have, you and Santi. Every time I saw you together, all I could think was how much I wanted to have that with Morgan." He laughed, brittle and bitter. "See? Stupid."

"No. Not stupid. Not stupid at all." True, Wolfe would never have thought of himself as a role model in that area, but to know that Jess saw him as such... It meant something. With a soft hand to the cheek, he guided Jess's head up until he could look the young man in the eye. Blue-gray like storm clouds, those eyes. How had he not noticed before how beautiful they were? Ignoring that wine-inspired thought, he said, "If love is something you seek, Jess, you will find it. Impossible as it may seem now, you-"

All his half-formed plans of a reassuring lecture flew away as Jess kissed him. Nothing chaste about it; no familial affection, but raw passion and burning need, and gods help him, Wolfe met that need with his own. He drew the boy's seeking tongue into his mouth and sank his fingers into the boy's hair, as if in doing so he could assuage his gnawing hunger for Nic and the very tangible comfort Nic gave.

He took entirely too long to come to his senses and pull back, panting, heart pounding, both hands firm on Jess's shoulders to maintain the distance between them. "Now _that_ ," he said, too breathless to convey the scorn he'd intended, "was stupid."

"Maybe stupid is what I want right now," Jess said, defiant. "Don't tell me you don't want the same."

"Irrelevant," Wolfe said, trying very hard not to think about how tightly Jess's thighs gripped him. Runner's thighs, strong and lean. "You're like a son-"

"But I'm not. I'm not your son," Jess interrupted. "And don't tell me you can't because of Santi. I've heard things. About both of you."

Wolfe had half a mind to ask just what Jess had heard, and where, but he decided he really didn't want to know. Instead he eyed Jess with extreme scrutiny and said, "What did you come here for, Jess?" The young man's unexpected appearance with dinner and wine was starting to look rather suspicious, in retrospect. Only falafel, but if anyone would try to seduce a man with falafel, it was Jess Brightwell.

Jess looked away, but the look on his face wasn't guilt. It was shame. "I don't even know," he said, his voice breaking. A tear rolled down his cheek. "I didn't even know where I was going. I just had to get out. And I ended up here."

The pain in those words was too raw to be an act, and this would hardly be the first time Jess turned up after aimless wandering. The poor boy was confused, nothing more. Interpreting the need for physical comfort as sexual attraction. If he saw the difference between the two, that would put him right. Wolfe pulled the boy into his arms once more and held him, intending no more than comfort. It didn't matter how good Jess's body felt against his, how hot Jess's breath was on his neck. How soft Jess's lips had been. Jess needed comfort, and Wolfe would give it, and they would both forget this mad spark that had passed between them.

Jess rolled his hips. His rigid length rubbed against Wolfe's stomach. He mouthed at Wolfe's neck, too clumsy to call it a kiss.

Ra's flaming ass, Wolfe did not have the strength for this. "Stop that," he admonished, wishing he couldn't feel how tight his trousers were getting. He was much too old for inopportune erections, couldn't even manage one every time he wanted one, and now, of all times, his body decided to show its interest? Ridiculous.

Turning his head into Wolfe's shoulder, Jess mumbled something Wolfe couldn't make out.

"It's all right," Wolfe said. He rubbed Jess's back, strictly to soothe, mentally counting the bumps of ribs and spine to keep his hand from straying too low. As much for his own benefit as Jess's, he added, "These kinds of, ah, responses are normal. Particularly in men such as ourselves who do not often seek out physical contact. It will pass."

"What if I don't want it to?" Jess asked. Muffled and slurred, but not so much that Wolfe could pretend not to have understood. His fingers dug into Wolfe's back. "I want to feel this. Want to feel alive."

That was a feeling Wolfe understood, one that the quivering part of him that would never truly be free of the cell knew all too well. He'd often reached for Nic in the night for that very reason, and he had a powerful urge to give the boy anything he might ask for. Jess deserved it, after all he'd been through. Deserved to be held, petted, kissed...

But Jess kept going, "Want you."

Like the bracing shock of a cold wind, those words snapped Wolfe out of that absurd line of thinking. Jess didn't deserve to be used as the object of Wolfe's misplaced longing. "It's not me you want, boy, it's a feeling. And I'm far from the right one to give it to you." He spoke softly, with one hand cupped reassuringly around the back of the boy's head, trying to minimize the pain of rejection.

Jess pushed back to glare at Wolfe with the exact wounded expression Wolfe had hoped to avert. Fierce pride laid over agonizing rejection. "I know what I want. I've wanted you since I saw you kissing Santi in my father's castle, maybe longer than that. But if you don't want me, you can say so. I'll go down to the docks, find someone less scrupulous about who he fucks."

 _"No."_ The word came out in a snarl, as viciously protective as the embrace Wolfe dragged Jess into. All too easily, he could picture what the kinds of men who lurked around the docks at night would do to a boy like Jess. Small, young, desperate, inexperienced, all too easily shattered. "I won't allow it. They'd tear you to shreds, boy. You might not believe it right now, but you deserve better than that."

Jess looked up at Wolfe, a raging gale in those blue eyes. "Then give it to me," he said, and kissed Wolfe.

It was a terrible idea to kiss back. Wolfe knew that, but he did it anyway, not even passively like their first kiss, but aggressively. Possessively. For the urge to protect and the urge to possess were two sides of the same coin, the same smoldering need to keep Jess here in his arms, far from the predators that prowled the docks. Jess met the aggression in kind, turning the kiss to a battle in which it was impossible to tell which side emerged as the victor. Both of them, perhaps. Or neither.

In a momentary lull, Wolfe grumbled, "You're staying the night."

He counted it as a victory when Jess answered with another kiss. Both the boy's hands found their way into Wolfe's hair, an exploration Wolfe gladly allowed. It was something Nic would do when Wolfe was in a mood like this, and Wolfe couldn't help but compare the two men, in action and in body. He ran a hand up and down Jess's thigh and reached around to give his ass a good grope. Hard muscle, much like Nic's, but on a smaller scale. Jess's body was a study in economy, a greyhound of a man, built for pure speed. Wolfe found himself wondering what might be possible with Jess's lighter weight and youthful flexibility compared to Nic's honed athleticism.

Jess, it seemed, had other curiosities. Pulling back from the kiss, he took hold of the top button of Wolfe's shirt and asked, "Can I...?" Though his voice came out hesitant, his eyes were alight with interest. Typical youth, so eager to see bare skin.

"Yes," Wolfe answered, surprising even himself with the speed of the reply. Usually, the question of nudity was more fraught. Wolfe's body told too many stories, none that he was keen to share. But Jess already knew. Jess had read the guard's diary, walked through the prison in Rome, heard everything Wolfe said in the Mesmer's trance. Jess _knew_. There would be no uncomfortable questions because Jess already knew, and that was freeing.

Thief that he was, Jess had the buttons undone in short order, his nimble hands seemingly unimpaired by all the wine he'd consumed. Those hands wasted no time in exploring Wolfe's skin as soon as the shirt was out of the way. As with anything Jess did, he devoted himself to the task with his full attention, and Wolfe sat back, eyes half closing at the simple pleasure of feeling those slender hands gliding over his body as if determined to touch every exposed inch of him. In this, Jess was nothing at all like Nic. He didn't know the places that felt the best, but then, neither did he pay any particular attention to the scars. Nic did. Not always consciously, but out of habits built in weeks when they were delicate and freshly healed, months when Wolfe had too easily forgotten that they were only scars and needed a firm touch to remind him that the pain was only in his head. Jess, with no such habits, treated them with the same curiosity as the surrounding skin, and there was something refreshing in that. Jess knew Wolfe's past, but that knowledge did not weigh on him so heavily as it did on Wolfe and Nic.

Jess had his own burdens, and he deserved the same relief of laying them aside. Deciding that he ought to have the same privilege of unimpeded touch, Wolfe wrangled Jess's shirt from his body. His own hands felt the wine, wavered with it. The effort was worthwhile, though, to see the boy's pale form bare before him, soft skin begging to be stroked. Without hesitation, he did exactly that, delighting in the way that Jess moaned at the first brush of skin on skin. So much could be done without the interference of clothing. Palms could run over the smooth expanse of a chest, fingers could pinch a nipple. Jess had sensitive ones, small like the rest of him, perfectly sized for rolling between fingers. Jess actually squealed at that before attempting the same move on Wolfe. As in everything else, he proved a quick study.

Soon, hands weren't enough. Wolfe pulled Jess into another kiss, drinking down the boy's groan as their bodies pressed together. The boy's hairless chest felt like velvet against his own weathered flesh, impossibly luxurious. Slowly, lightly, he ran his nails down Jess's back, and was rewarded with a yelp of delight and the hard press of the young man's hips into his own, grinding their erections together through the suddenly unbearable barrier of trousers. Head swimming with lust and wine, Wolfe thrust both hands down the back of Jess's trousers to take firm hold of the boy's ass. Muscles rippled in his palms with the roll of Jess's hips, and Jess groaned, deep and needy.

"Getting close, boy?" Wolfe asked, turning away from the kiss. It was a real risk, with Jess so young and so sensitive, and though Wolfe knew he should have welcomed a hasty end to this ill-advised frenzy of lust, he found that he could not bear the thought. He wanted to give Jess something better than a clumsy, fumbled orgasm. Wanted something better for himself, too, in all honesty. It wasn't a question of sexual satisfaction - Jess would not, Wolfe thought, be a selfish lover - but one of intent and effort. If they were going to do this mad thing, it ought to be done well.

"No," Jess said, but his hips slowed their undulation, and he nuzzled his face into Wolfe's neck, panting hard. "Don't want to finish yet. Want you to fuck me."

How very like Jess to want to plunge into the intimacy of penetration rather than seeking less risky pleasures. Taking Jess's hips in a firm grip to still them, Wolfe asked, "Ever been fucked before?"

Jess shook his head and mumbled, "No. Haven't worked up the nerve. But it's different with you. Safer."

And that was the core of it, wasn't it? The reason Wolfe ignored the sensible voice in the back of his head that told him not to do this. If Jess wanted to be fucked, Jess would get himself fucked, whatever it might take. Better that Wolfe be the one to do it. "Yes. I will keep you safe," Wolfe agreed in a whisper against Jess's hair. "Going to need to get a couple things from the bedroom. I'll assume you paid at least a scrap of attention to the Medica briefings on venereal disease?" It was part of the High Garda's basic training, and with good reason. The methods of stress relief favored by young soldiers were well known and highly predictable.

"Condoms and lubrication, yes, I know, I have them" Jess said. He pushed back from Wolfe with a sheepish look on his face and red in his pale cheeks. Bending to the side in a way that made Wolfe's side ache just to look at, Jess retrieved his shirt from where it had landed on the floor and dug in a pocket to retrieve a wrapped condom and a small tube of lubricant. Both High Garda issue. "Like I said, I wasn't sure where I was going, and..."

And thank the gods he'd come to Wolfe, and not gone wandering to the docks instead. Keeping that thought to himself, Wolfe held out a hand and said, "And you brought those along, in case you might need them. Good thinking."

The red in Jess's cheeks deepened at the praise, or maybe at the thought of what would come next. He handed over both tube and package and stood. On his feet, the effects of the wine were more apparent, and he wobbled as he reached for the fastenings of his trousers. "I... I'm not much to look at..." he said with an apologetic smile.

Already at work freeing the necessary portion of his own anatomy, Wolfe shook his head. "You'll learn soon enough how little appearances matter in that area," he said with a soft laugh, thinking of the wide variety of bodies he'd enjoyed over the years. "Skill is a far more relevant factor in determining the level of enjoyment in intimate encounters."

"How do you do that?" Jess asked, bent halfway with trousers and undergarments around his ankles. Probably not aware of what an alluring position that was. "You had as much wine as I did, and you sound like you're in a classroom."

"Experience," Wolfe said in his loftiest tone. He declined to elaborate that he had gained much of that experience in the bedroom with Nic, who liked very much to be lectured.

Jess straightened, and Wolfe had an instant's glimpse of his lithesome body and the erection standing out from a tangle of pale hair before Jess launched himself back into Wolfe's lap, half a graceful slide and half a drunken fall. Wolfe caught Jess by the waist and steadied him, holding the boy in place when Jess threw both arms around Wolfe's neck and tried to pull himself in.

"Impatient child," Wolfe said with a stern glare and a nod toward the condom and lubricant resting on the arm of the couch. "First lesson for you: jump on a cock unprepared, and you'll regret it."

"I know, I know, just..." Jess gave a lopsided smile and nervous laughter bubbled up from him.

"The body wants what it wants. I know." Wolfe stroked the boy's side, meaning to offer reassurance but finding his hand drawn by the magnetic pull of a sharp hipbone, and from there to the hard curve of Jess's backside. Wolfe gave an encouraging squeeze as he said, "How about you show me you know what to do with that condom, then we'll get you loosened up."

"I know how to put a condom on," Jess said. Letting go of Wolfe's neck, he snatched up the condom. His body swayed, but he kept his balance, and his hands never wavered as he tore the condom open.

Wolfe watched very closely as Jess positioned the condom on the head of his cock and slowly unrolled it. Teasing or careful, Wolfe couldn't be sure, didn't know Jess well enough in this context to be sure, but the look on the young man's face was one of concentration. High Garda issue condoms were, in Wolfe's opinion, of barely acceptable quality. He was close enough to average in size that the fit was acceptable, but he found the material excessively thick, made more to withstand soldiers' clumsy and overly vigorous use than to promote pleasure in either partner. This time, though, there might as well have been nothing at all between cock and fingers, so intensely did he feel Jess's touch. Hot as fire where skin met skin, but the reverberations along his nerves made him shiver.

Jess wrapped his hand around Wolfe's shaft and gave it an experimental stroke. "Well? Do I pass the test?"

"Yes." The word came out as a moan. Wolfe had a hard time caring much about that, undignified as it was. "Full marks, perfect score, no drawing a tile for you..." - a snort of laughter from Jess at that - "...now come here, boy, up a little." With both hands cupping Jess's ass, he urged Jess closer until the young man knelt straddling him, rump in the air and arms braced on the couch behind Wolfe's head.

It wasn't the position Wolfe would have chosen for himself. Fondly, faintly, he remembered his own first experience with penetration, lying on his back and looking up at Nic's adoring smile. But this suited Jess better, Wolfe thought. Being on top would give Jess more control, something Wolfe suspected Jess badly needed right now, in a time when so much else had been torn from him. Jess seemed comfortable enough, his panting breath the only hint of unease, and that could as well be anticipation as nerves. Much more likely anticipation, to judge by the wet smear the tip of the boy's cock left as it brushed against Wolfe's skin.

"Easy now," Wolfe said, keeping an arm draped across Jess's hips to steady him while opening the tube of lubricant. Nic could open these damned tubes one-handed, but Wolfe had never quite worked out the trick of it. The stuff inside the tube wasn't worth the trouble of learning. Much like the condoms, it was utilitarian, adequate for its purpose, but doing nothing to add to the experience. He much preferred thick, long-lasting oils, but those were tragically incompatible with the condom. By comparison, the clear liquid he squeezed onto his finger seemed thin, and he compensated by applying extra. If the tube ran out, they could always get another from the bedroom. 

A drop fell, landed at the base of Jess's spine and rolled down the cleft between his cheeks, leaving a glistening trail. Groaning, Jess leaned forward, tipping his bottom higher.

"Nice deep breaths now. We're going to take this slow." Wolfe said, sliding his lubricated finger along that trail and into position. Very slowly, he rubbed the tight pucker of Jess's entrance, and was surprised at how easily Jess loosened, allowing his finger to slip in to the first knuckle. "Done this much before?" he asked.

"Yes," Jess said. Wolfe expected no elaboration on that, but Jess added, voice tight, "With Morgan. In the castle, before..." His voice broke, and his chest shook with a swallowed cry.

Before everything went so horribly wrong. Wolfe shivered himself at the memory, but when he started to withdraw his finger, Jess pushed back against him, driving it deeper in.

"No. Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

All too well, Wolfe recognized the heavy, tangled emotion that saturated Jess's voice, and the force of the need behind it. The need to feel and to forget, to be anchored in the present by the body's demands, with no room left for the past. He could give Jess that.

He could have it for himself.

A second finger went into the boy without difficulty, drawn into the hot depth of him to the sound of a relieved sigh. Gods, Jess was going to feel good on his cock, virgin tight but so very eager. And so sensitive. Every stroke of Wolfe's fingers drew a new sound. Groans when he spread them wide. A sharp gasp when he first found Jess's prostate. A warbling cry when he rubbed it with slowly increasing pressure. He suspected that alone could have brought Jess to orgasm if he'd had the patience for it.

He didn't. Nor did Jess. By the time he had three fingers comfortably in, Jess was rocking against him, muttering in increasingly profane English. Even had he not been fluent in the language, Wolfe suspected he would have caught the meaning, punctuated as it was by the bucking of hips and the dripping of fluid onto his stomach. Wolfe spread his fingers wide, and Jess groaned out a particularly emphatic, " _Fuck. Scholar, please._ "

"Hush. Call me Christopher," Wolfe said softly.

It wasn't that he minded being called "Scholar" during sex. Under the right circumstances, he rather liked it. In another world, a better world, one where he had come to teach a postulant class not by coercion, but as an act of service to the Library, one where he'd made his selections and sent the rest home unharmed... Yes, in such a world, he might have encountered Jess, a year or two on, and seduced his former student. In that world, he would gladly have heard his title from the boy's lips in the throes of passion, but this was not that world. For them, it never would be. They'd both been too badly broken by the collapse of the old order to have such carefree affairs.

Nor was this any time for the role-playing games he enjoyed with Nic. This moment held too much weight for either he or Jess to be anyone but themselves, with all their scars laid bare. Each the piece to fill the ache of loneliness in the other's heart, if only this once.

"Christopher," Jess said. Quiet, reverent, testing. Yes, that sounded right. Must have to Jess, too, because he said it again, pleading. "Christopher. Please. I'm ready."

Wolfe smiled fondly as he pulled his fingers out to grasp Jess by the hips and guide him into place. "All right, all right. Impatient thing."

Jess needed very little guidance. His head came up immediately, eyes watery but alight with anticipation, and he met Wolfe's smile with one of his own. That crooked smile that was half his brother's, made his own. Hands braced on Wolfe's shoulders, he lined himself up with Wolfe's waiting erection. Kneeling there, poised to thrust himself down, his hair disheveled and a blush on his cheeks, he rivaled any erotic painting Wolfe had seen.

"You're beautiful," Wolfe breathed. Because it was true. Because it was what every young man needed to hear as he experienced, for the first time, the ultimate intimacy of taking another within himself. Because it was what Nic had said to him, all those years ago.

"So are you," Jess replied.

It could only be flattery, but Jess looked at Wolfe with such sincerity, such gravity, that Wolfe almost believed it. He could only imagine what he really looked like. In comparison with the picture of youthful fitness in his lap, he probably looked absurd. Sprawled on the couch, hair a graying mess, body scarred and worn.

But his arms still had the strength to catch Jess and hold him as the idiot boy tried to drop himself down onto Wolfe's cock as if sitting on a chair. He held Jess there, just the tip of his cock pressing in, which was not enough, not nearly enough, but already so much that the feeling echoed through the whole of his body even as he held onto enough self control to narrow his eyes and say, "Slowly, boy. _Slowly_. You're working a new muscle, one in a very delicate part of your body, and you don't even know your own limits. Go easy."

"When have either of us known our limits?" Jess panted, but he slowed his descent all the same.

The slower pace wasn't only to Jess's benefit. Wolfe had the privilege of savoring every moment of entering Jess, and of watching Jess's face all the while. He saw the wide-eyed shock of pain, there and gone, transformed first to determination, then to to pleasure as his head pushed through the tight ring of Jess's entrance and into the softer heat within. Muscles clenched tight, slowly released, over and over, inch by inch, the finest of massages to his most sensitive part. Jess took him, all of him, and sat panting, mouth open and pupils very large, as he adjusted to the fullness and Wolfe basked in the heat of him.

"That's it. Give yourself time to get used to it," Wolfe said. "How does it feel?"

Slowly shifting his hips back and forth, Jess considered that. "Nice. Intense. In a good way."

"Let me make it even better, then," Wolfe said, and took hold of Jess's cock. It fit nicely in his hand, a little smaller than his own, the skin lighter, its texture exquisite. If Jess's skin was velvet, then his cock was covered in the finest velvet ever made, smooth and soft over the rigid length of him. Very pleasant to touch, especially when Jess moaned at the added sensation. "There, that's what you want, isn't it? Something strong enough to drive you out of your head."

Jess bent forward to rest his forehead against Wolfe's. "There's nothing good in my head right now," he whispered.

"I know. Mine is no different," Wolfe murmured. "But you can let go of that now. I've got you."

He meant to say more, but Jess kissed him then, slow and deep, and there was no more space for words. Jess tangled a hand in Wolfe's hair, and his hips shifted. The tiniest of movements at first, testing, finding rhythm and angle, building to a steady, gentle rocking.

It started gentle, at least. Sooner than Wolfe would have thought possible, Jess was sitting tall, head thrown back as he thrust himself onto Wolfe with wild abandon. On every downward push, he cried out at the touch of cock to prostate, and Wolfe could hear his own animal grunting, the sound of it wild as Jess's movement. Thought had fled, along with the majority of Wolfe's senses, all consumed by the eroticism of the sight before him and the crushing, burning grip on his cock. Under the barrage of stimulus, there was little more he could do than hold onto Jess, one hand on the boy's hip, the other on the boy's cock. By instinct more than by conscious choice, he kept the stroking of that second hand in time with the tightening coil of his own desire so as not to push Jess over the edge too soon.

Jess rose, his body a graceful arc, straining for orgasm. Sweat glistened on his face, his pale and narrow chest.

Jess fell, and everything in him tightened. Jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, fingers digging into Wolfe's shoulders. Close. Very close.

Wolfe felt that same strain mirrored in his own body, in muscles gone rigid and eyes closing against his will. Pressure built in his balls, floodwaters surging against a dam, and for a frantic moment, he thought the dam might hold, the climax elude him.

Jess rose, and fell, and the flood came in a coursing rush of relief that Wolfe felt from head to toes. It left him breathless and numb save for the pounding aftershocks that pulsed through his cock to the beat of his racing heart. Almost painful.

Time to push Jess over with him. Wolfe tightened his fist on Jess's cock and gave a hard, quick pull that drew a sharp cry from the boy. Another like that as Jess struck his own prostate, and Jess collapsed against him with a deep and satisfied groan.

"Christopher," Jess murmured. "Thank you."

Lethargy settled over Wolfe. His eyes stayed shut, and his body loosened as he caught his breath, sinking back into the couch cushions. He retained sufficient presence of mind to pull out of Jess and get the condom tied off and wrapped in a tissue, but the thought of any further effort was exhausting. There was no need to move. His head fuzzy with wine and endorphins, he was content to rest with Jess warm and sated in his arms.

"That was good," Jess said after a while, his voice blurred around the edges, as if he were only just feeling the wine. "I... I needed that. A lot. And I'm glad it was you."

A long moment passed before Wolfe registered the undercurrent of sorrow in the boy's voice. He looked down to see Jess's face streaked with tears, incongruous with the smile that curved across his kiss-swollen lips.

"I'm all right," Jess said, and the smile widened to reach his eyes. "It's just... it's like everything's loosened up, like my heart's all open and..." He sniffled, then laughed, awkward.

"Catharsis," Wolfe said gently, stroking Jess's hair as he tucked the boy's head against his shoulder. "Hold back your emotions long enough, and they're bound to spill out at times like this. There's no shame in it."

He held Jess through the laughter and the tears, and when the rush of emotion passed, leaving Jess exhausted in his arms, he carried Jess to bed. An indulgence, perhaps, to sleep curled around the young man, but far preferable to sleeping alone.

* * *

Morning came with a pounding headache and a brief spark of panic at the weight of an unfamiliar body in the bed before the memory of the previous night crashed in, and it was all Wolfe could do to hold back his groan.

Stupid. That had been truly, incredibly stupid, and he still couldn't have said with complete certainty that he regretted it. Not with the way Jess lay curled beneath the sheets, pale hair gilded by a ray of sunlight and a look of complete contentment on his thin face. At ease in a way he hadn't been in a long time.

Wolfe pressed a light kiss to the boy's forehead before getting up and throwing on his favorite red silk robe to go and make breakfast.

Though he would hardly call himself even halfway competent at cooking, Wolfe had learned over the years to make a tolerably edible breakfast, and he'd found that there was something soothingly distracting in the way the task occupied his attention. It wasn't something he did every day - he'd picked up Nic's Italian habit of calling sweets and coffee a meal in the morning - but they always kept eggs in the icebox for when the mood for heartier fare or more involved cooking struck. There was good bread, too, for toasting, and some cheddar and a tomato left. Suitable ingredients for sandwiches.

Wolfe had just started the eggs when Jess stumbled in, bleary eyed and wrapped in the old shirt of Nic's that Wolfe had given him to sleep in.

Gods, he looked entirely too good like that. Wolfe had to turn his attention sharply back to the stove. Eyes fixed on the pan, he asked, "Did you sleep all right?"

"Yeah," Jess said with a yawn. His shuffling feet came closer, and he poured himself a mug of coffee from the pot on the counter, visible just from the corner of Wolfe's eye. "Christopher, er, Scholar Wolfe... I... last night, did we....?"

Wolfe had a very strong urge to deny it. Let Jess think it had been a drunken dream. But no good would come of that; this was something Jess needed to know. "We had sexual intercourse, yes," Wolfe said. "I penetrated you. We used a condom. We were both intoxicated." The words sounded distant, clinical, but that was what they needed if there was to be any hope of returning to what they had been to one another before wine and heartache seized them both.

"Right. We had a lot of wine." Jess laughed, and it sounded warm. That was, Wolfe thought, the best they could hope for, under the circumstances. "We, uh, probably shouldn't do that again."

"I think that would be for the best," Wolfe agreed, and flipped the eggs. "Best, I think, not to speak of it again, either."

"We will never speak of this again. Swear to God," Jess agreed. He took a deep gulp of coffee and said, "Shit, Anit's going to be expecting me at the shop. I have to go."

A blatant excuse to flee if Wolfe ever heard one, but he let Jess have it. He got the sandwiches made and wrapped one, meeting Jess at the door to hand it over along with an insulated flask of coffee. To Jess's dubious look he said, "Eat. Trust me. It will help with the hangover."

One foot out the door, Jess paused and turned back to Wolfe. "Thank you. For everything. Even... um, you know. I'm still glad I came here last night."

"As am I," Wolfe said. "And you will always be welcome here, Jess. What happened last night doesn't have to change anything."

Jess smiled. "I know. Let's forget it happened, shall we?"

"Agreed," Wolfe said, though privately, he doubted it would be so easily done as said.

With that, Jess hurried away into the bustle of the waking city. Wolfe waited until the boy's slender figure disappeared in the shuffle of traffic before closing the door.


End file.
